You love me Real or not real?
by colemen
Summary: added to ending. loved/hated it. wished there was more peeta & k/p interaction in MJ, her trying to get him back, them growing together again. I do not own the Hunger Games. Hunger Games is owned by Suzanne Collins. please review. and enjoy!


_"You love him. I'm not saying in what way. Maybe you don't even know.."_

_Finnick plays with his piece of rope. And then he's happy again, marrying the love of his life, Annie. And then Annie has a baby boy who looks just like Finnick, and she's sad and happy all at the same time. Finnick is getting his neck torn open by mutts and I drop the holo, hoping to spare him from all of the pain these mutts will give him. The holo explodes, up rises debris and smoke and fire and blood and chunks of flesh, and I'm screaming because I know some of that is surely Finnick._

_Prim is dancing around joyfully, in and out of my vision. But she's not there, she's safe in District 13, learning to be a doctor._

_Boggs is telling me before he dies, "Kill Peeta and do what you came here to do." Kill Peeta. I could do it and it would be easy. One arrow straight through the eyes, or the heart. But I don't want to._

_Peeta is begging me to kill him or to leave him behind. "You're still trying to protect me, real or not real?" "Real. Its what we do, protect each other," I answer._

_Children are dying. Blood is splattering everywhere. Gale watches me get swept up in a torrent of people, peacekeepers after me. He doesn't stop me, just waves goodbye. I'm screaming for help but help doesn't come and it never will._

_Prim is dancing in and out of the crowd, and I try to catch up to her, try to grab her hand. She's always just a bit out of my reach. She touches the hand of a child who is crying, bleeding from the last explosion. The back of her shirt is untucked, sticking out like a duck tail. I scream her name and she turns to see me._

_I'm almost to her, when the child who's hand she is holding, opens up a silver parachute that blows up, and she disappears in the flames. I'm screaming feeling my throat rip apart from it. And the fire burns my skin and I manage to take my arrow, notch into place on the bow, and fire it up at a balcony where Coin is smugly watching the scene. The arrow goes right into her heart and she falls over into the fire with all the rest._

_We are all burning, and I am the girl on fire, and everyone is burning with me._

_A pair of hands are on my arms dragging me away and I try to rip the Nightlock capsule out of my pocket, because I don't want to be tortured but even more so, I don't want to live in a world where I have no one. Not Prim, not Gale, not Peeta, not my father, or Cinna, or Finnick, or many of the people who have kept me going._

_The capsule is almost past my lips when a pair of hands clamps on my cheeks, making me spit it out. The capsule is crushed under the boots that belong to the person who forced me to spit out the capsule._

_I'm telling him to let me go and he says "I can't."_

_And then the fire begins to burn again and Prim dies again and again and again, and all I can do is burn but not die, and watch her. The only other thing I can do is scream until the fire is there too._

There's a cold sweat all over my body and I'm trembling so much that my teeth chatter loudly and painfully.

I'm tangled in my bed sheets, and my breathing comes out irregularly. It takes a few moments for me to realize that there are arms wrapped loosely around me.

I turn to look into the face laying next to me, to find blue eyes looking at me worriedly.

"Calming down?"

I nod.

He's almost like the boy from our first games together. He's a little worse for wear, a little bit older looking, and a little bit changed. Most of who Peeta is or was, has come back to him.

Sometimes he still gets angry, and he has moments of confusion, when he can't figure out his own memories, some of his jokes miss a beat now and then, but still the good out weighs the bad.

My throat hurts and I know I must have been screaming. I regret that I do this often, and that Peeta is almost always here to comfort me and make sure I'm okay.

"Sorry," I mumble, biting down on my lip.

"Don't be," he says quietly.

Not for the first time do I wonder how we got here, and how I got lucky enough to have him back in my life as a friend.

Sometimes he mutters in his sleep, about mutts, and his family, and me, but never in waking moments does he mention any of this. He does ask questions though, but never about whether or not I'm a mutt.

I cannot meet his eyes so instead I look away. The quiet around us seems heavy, though I believe its mostly just in my head. After many long minutes of not looking at him, and looking everywhere else in silence, he says, "Whats wrong?"

"Do you think the nightmares will ever end?," I ask.

He's quiet for a moment, and then he carefully says, "I think they'll always be there. They may be less haunting or be less frequent eventually... But I think we'll never forget about the things we've been through, and the things we've seen and done..." There's a grimace on his face and I wonder if he remembers everything, or if he only remembers what the Capitol made him believe, and everything after his rescue. I wonder if he remembers life before the games, and life during the games with me. I wonder if he remembers them as his memories, or just as what he's been told is real or not real.

"Prim is dead," I say, hollowly. I have finally been able to say her name, and to name her fate, but it doesn't stop hurting to say it and to remember it, because it makes it more real.

"Yes," he says sadly, And then he adds, "Real."

We've taken to playing this game. It's not really a game for fun, its a way of coping, and of communicating, of clearing things up for each other. Because as it turns out, Peeta isn't the only one who needs to find his reality. We're caught between reality and fantasy, and more than fantasy, nightmares.

"She died already, but I keep watching her die. Over and over, and I can't ever stop it," I say.

"I know," he says. When I don't respond he adds, "You were calling to her in your sleep. I had an idea about what you were dreaming..."

"I said her name?"

"Yeah..."

"Oh."

Suddenly I'm embarrassed. I talk in my sleep? Is this the first time its happened? Do I usually talk in my sleep? Have I ever said anything else?

Peeta reaches across to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.

The touch is sweet and sad, and it makes me think to a time when we seemed to fit with each other so well, despite the fact that he was so in love with me, and I was too busy being strong and guarded, and angry about what seemed like a plan designed for me that I had no real control over. Even with all of the negative emotion I had, I cared for Peeta, and he became a good friend, and somehow the physical closeness we had together, on and off camera, didn't feel bad or forced, it felt natural and comfortable.

I think back and wish we could have those times back, before our lives were completely uprooted and torn apart, before we were forever changed, before all of the immeasurable heart ache.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks. His hands have long since been back at his sides, and I realize I've been staring off into nothing.

"Is that...Did I...I didn't know...that I talked in my sleep...," I say after a few false starts. I really want to ask him something, but I don't know how and I'm afraid to.

And like he once could, Peeta understands the unasked question. "You do sometimes. I just never thought it mattered much so I never told you... I mean what good would that do, except maybe make you uncomfortable or embarrassed?"

Somehow Peeta still manages to understand a lot about me. Now I'm really even more embarrassed and anxious because what he said suggests that I have said things that would make me uncomfortable or embarrassed.

"What kinds of things have I said?" I ask, my voice cracking.

"Mostly names of people," he says. "Sometimes you say actual sentences..." He's deliberately avoiding saying anything specific, which makes me even more self conscious.

"Peeta."

He sighs. "Katniss what do you want to know?"

"Well... I don't know..." Except I do know. But how do I ask without giving away the obvious?

Reading my mind again he says, "You've said my name a few times."

He says it almost nonchalantly. If this were before the Quell, he would probably be beaming a little, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"How many times?" I ask, my face heating up. Its a wonder I can bother to be embarrassed or horrified by something so little after everything else that has happened in my short life.

"I never counted," he says simply. So many times, I assume.

"Have I ever said anything in relation to your name?" Its an awkward way of phrasing a question, but I've never been good at expressing myself, or feeling comfortable doing it.

"Sometimes."

"Like what?"

"Stuff... Like 'stay' or 'come back' or 'please' or 'sorry' or 'you were the best thing that ever happened to me, these are the best times ever-"

"I did not!," I gasp in horror.

Peeta laughs. Really laughs. Just like his old self. "No you didn't."

I'm burning with embarrassment at my outburst, but suddenly I'm smiling with him. Because here is a glimpse of the old Peeta, as if nothing had ever happened, as if he had never changed, as if we had never been ripped apart.

And then I'm laughing too, and it feels so good to laugh. I'm not really laughing at the joke because its terribly funny, because its not. I'm laughing because Peeta is laughing at my reaction, and he's just like the boy he was, and because the silly words are so similar to a time in a cave, when he joked about me saying something along those lines.

Eventually we stop laughing. It just dies out, but not in a bad way, like being pulled back into a harsh reality. It just goes away, and in its wake, we lay looking up at the ceiling with the moonlight casting silver and shadows across it.

I wonder for a moment where he'd be if he wasn't here. If I wasn't here either. If I'd granted his wish to be killed after Boggs and Mitchell died, or in the tunnels escaping the mutts. If I'd let him died then, or worse, had been the one to deliver him his death, and Prim died, and Gale and I had fallen apart, and I killed Coin, what would my life have been like in twelve, just me and a barely present Haymitch. I imagine I'd have gone completely crazy, or would have died of grief and loneliness. Or perhaps I'd have finished myself off. I'd never have had a reason to smile or laugh ever again.

And then I remind myself, that if Peeta had died that day in the Capitol, I would have shortly followed, after assassinating Coin, because I would have taken the Nightlock and there would have been no one to stop me.

Which brings me back to my dream of a distorted memory, and a question I've wanted to ask him for so long.

"Peeta?"

"Hmm?"

"Why didn't you let me go?"

"What?"

I turn to look at him. His face is confused.

"The Nightlock capsule," I whisper. "You stopped me. I told you to let me go and you said you couldn't."

He's studying my face now. We stay like this for a while, studying each other.

"Because I couldn't let you go. By the time that happened, I was less confused than I'd been before. I didn't understand everything but what I understood was that I didn't hate you. And that so many times, you had saved me. And because if the places were reversed, you would have stopped me, no matter what. Because when I wanted out you kissed me and you told me to stay with you. Because you didn't want to give up on me staying alive. Because even if I didn't understand everything, I understood this: that my whole life is so closely linked to yours. That for the longest time you were the biggest thing in my life, and even then you still were. There was nothing left for me Katniss. My family is gone. My friends are mostly all gone. I'm broken and scarred and changed. Theres nothing left for me but you. And it seemed my life and myself was defined by you. Whether it was loving you, hating you, admiring you from afar, or being your friend, you were the big event in my life, the focus of it, the definition of it. And because I asked you once if you were still trying to protect me and you said real, and you said, Its what we do. We protect each other. And its true. Its what we do."

I don't know that his answer satisfies me. It makes me emotional, thats for sure. Because its such a confusing answer. In one way it shows he cares, always has, always will, but in another way its not enough, because if he had never changed, if he had never lost himself, the answer would simply have been, _"Because I need you and I love you."_

This is when I know what I have refused to know for so long, which is this: I loved that Peeta loved me, when I did not deserve it. And I had grown to love Peeta, a long time ago.

Peeta's hands wiping away tears from my cheeks wakes me from my thoughts. I didn't even know I was crying.

"Shhh," he coos me, coming closer to me, putting his arms around me. "Don't cry. Why are you crying?"

Does he really not know?

I don't answer, unsure how to. How do I say what needs to be said? What if his answer

isn't what I want it to be? What if he can never really come back to me?

The tears slow, and my breathing begins to regulate, and his arms are warmly wrapped around me. He's so close to me, and I cherish that closeness, a closeness that seemed impossible almost a year ago. But somehow I feel like its not close enough. I want to crawl into his skin and live in him, safe and warm. I want to feel his heart and be part of it again. I want him to say the words that I once shuddered away from.

The air stills, and something changes, and once again its like he's reading my thoughts, like he knows whats going on inside. He slowly and gently tilts my face up, to look into my eyes.

We stay like this forever, reading each other, or trying to. Calculating the moments and the movements, carefully asking and answering wordlessly.

His lips touch mine softly, and my heart shatters into a million pieces from the grief and

overwhelming emotions inside of me.

We break apart after an eternity, to look at each other. Tears are welling up in my eyes, and I can barely see when I reach my hands over to him, to bury my fingers in his hair and pull him back, because now I need him back, and the distance makes me ache.

Our kisses flow out soft and tender and they become urgent and full of feeling, and the hunger I felt on the beach takes over, and I feel that no amount of kisses will ever be enough.

The tears are falling and I cannot see him leaning over me. When tears splash onto my face I gasp, because I didn't know he was crying.

These tears break my heart and yet they fill me up because in them is my Peeta, who maybe never really left. My Peeta who was always waiting to come back to me, who was always waiting for me. My Peeta who loved me his whole life, who gave me everything, who I thought I'd lost. My Peeta who is sorry for what happened between us, for losing himself, and losing his idea of me, his love for me, his memories of me.

"I've missed you," I cry out, in between urgent, passionate kisses and tears. Its the only thing I can think to say that can explain just what I feel, have been feeling. _I missed you after the Quell. I missed you when you came back and you weren't you. I missed us and this. I missed my friend. I missed knowing with certainty that you cared. I missed how you felt and how you showed it. I missed everything. I missed you being you._

"I've missed you too," he cries back. And its all I need to hear. It tells me he missed me then. He missed what we had or pretended to have. Missed what we were building together before and during the Quell. Missed how certain he was of his love, and the object of it. Missed our closeness and our easiness. Missed being himself and knowing that I cared for him too. Missed me while I've been away all this time. It tells me he's been waiting for me, like he always has.

We get lost in our kisses, in our need. We explore each other timidly and lovingly. We become so close as to be one, and I finally feel almost like I'm living inside of him, safe and warm, or rather that he is living inside of me, safe and warm. I feel his heart and know I am there still. Our hearts beat together as our bodies move together, finding each other, the way it was always supposed to be.

Afterward, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?"

I tell him, "Real."


End file.
